


Brush

by squigg_les



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action then fluff, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/F, Post-Avengers (2012), Steve is hella done with reader, im sure you're devistated, natasha lowkey in denial, reader is weird as hell idk fam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squigg_les/pseuds/squigg_les
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during The Winter Soldier, after the bunker exploded and everyone was buried in rubble. Natasha is injured, Reader and Steve take turns carrying her back to the escape car. </p>
<p>At Sam'a house, Reader comforts Natasha on her worries about SHIELD in the best way she can</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brush

**Author's Note:**

> This probably isn't going to go past one chapter but if y'all want more by all means leave a comment and I'll write more
> 
> Thanks y'all

[Name] touched her ear, and felt wetness there. When she snapped her fingers next to it, she didn't detect any noise on that side of her head. _Man, SHEILD doesn't go half ass when it comes to tracking down fugitives,_ she found herself thinking, and then smiled. _Probably not concussed, then._

There was no light. When [Name] placed her hands, she was able to extend her elbows about half way, both east, west, north, and south.  
"Steve?" She called, and rasped, for her throat was filled with dust. The rubble around her shifted in response. A tiny pinprick of light shone through, and desperately, [Name] stood and stretched to reached the long piece of cement that had kept the remains of who-knows-what from crushing her. "Steve?" She called again. 

The crack widened and none other than Captain America's face appeared in the opening. "Heyya, Cap." She gave the dust covered man a phony salute. 

"You alright?" His voice was at a whisper, she realized. The gap widened again and [Name] grasped the muscular forearm that was extended to her. Steve pulled her up without a great deal of difficult. 

" _Crist,_ those are some forearms," [Name] muttered as she crawled into the open air. "Oh, and the explosion may have fucked up my right ear a little. I'm good, though." Steve wasn't listening anymore. Sudden light crested the hill of rubble around them. Instinctively, [Name] dropped to a crouch. Steve crouched as well, thought at a crouch he still seemed to have at least a foot on her. "Wait," she jolted with realization. "Where's Natasha?" Red hair swam in the corner of her line of vision, and [Name]'s head snapped towards the third member of the small party. She lay, collapsed, on the ground. Panic flooded [Name]'s head, and she turned toward Steve, her eyes wide in horror. 

He waved her off. "She's out. I had to set her down." Steve rolled and scooped Natasha from the ground. [Name]'s worried eyes played over the other woman as footsteps echoed vaguely through the ruined landscape. " _Yikes, gotta blast_ ," she breathed, and followed Steve as he scurried away for the incoming flood of HYDRA agents. 

"D'you think they blew up our escape car? The one you _borrowed_?" [Name] hissed as they trotted into the nearby woods. 

"I hope not." There was a certain strain to Steve's voice when he spoke. 

"You alright? I can carry Natasha, if you need a break." 

"In a bit. I think I messed my shoulder up a little."

[Name] snorted, and stepped over a log that lay across her path. "It's not like you hoisted a bajillion pounds of rubble off of yourself while holding onto your little star spangled sheild, or anything."

"Sometimes I question why SHIELD let you in." 

She shrugged. "I'm nothing high-class like you and sugar-tits over there. Just a puny little field agent, that's me." 

Steve actually stopped and turned to look at her. "Did you just call Natasha Romanoff _sugar-tits_?" 

"She's dead out! What she doesn't know can't hurt her!" Steve shook his head. "We're not all as perfect as you, Cap'n Forearms. Besides, look at them-" 

"That's _enough_." If Steve hadn't been carrying Natasha, [Name] was pretty sure he would have been pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "I can see the car from here." [Name] nodded. The woods thinned to their left into a narrow concrete road; the one they'd arrived on. "I need you in the back seat with Natasha; there's a rifle in the back, and once the car starts up, they'll definitely be going after us. And," he shifted toward her, "can you take her now?" 

"Oh, sure, hand her off when we have to walk down the hill," [Name] complained. Steve gently pressed Natasha's limp form into the agent's arms. She grunted; the load wasn't as light as it appeared. 

The red headed assassin twitched, and curled sideways into [Name]'s side. "Morning, darlin'," she whispered, as Natasha blinked. "Explosion put you out for a bit, but we're alright now." She reached the bottom for the hill and trotted over to the car. 

"How are you carrying me?" Natasha asked. Her voice was raspy, as [Name]'s had been when she first spoke. 

"You're an itsy bitsy assassin. You're pretty light." Her forearms were _burning_ , but something in her didn't want to let it show on her face. "Come on." [Name] set her down in the car, and shoved herself in. "Steve, hit it." The car took off.

She leaned over and grasped under the seat; surely enough, her fingers scrabbled against loose metal and she yanked the gun under it out. "Let me shoot," Natasha said, but she didn't utter it with much conviction. 

"I'll be fine, love," [Name] muttered. Turning to the front of the car, she shouted; "Steve, anything?" 

"Yeah." A light crested the hill, and the sound of helicopter filled her left ear. Behind them, a row of cars had appeared. [Name]'s stomach sunk, but she plastered a slap-happy grin across her lips. 

"Alright! Love, could you hold my feet while I dangle the top half of my body from this car?"

"What's with the pet names?" Natasha asked. 

"Nervous habit." She rolled the window open, and wiggled out, clutching the gun to her chest. 

A bullet whizzed past her ear, and [Name] gritted her teeth, loading the gun. The helicopter was the one she should go for; when it crashed down, it would block the path for any cars following them. The thing was, it was almost exactly on top of them. "Steve, I need you to gas this thing!" [Name] yelled.

"What?"

"For fuck's sake, you lumbering piece of-" the car jolted forward, and [Name] yelped as Natasha's grip on her legs slipped. The chopper had fallen behind her, though, and [Name] stared through the scope, before squeezing the trigger. 

The helicopter's gas tank exploded. [Name] whooped, and yanked herself back into the car. "Nice shooting," Steve lent her a respectful smile, but all she had in response was a nod and a small, "mm." Her eyes stayed locked on the road behind them as the tiny car sped along the road. 

~•~

When the trio arrived at the "safe spot" Steve had described, [Name] and Natasha had nearly switched places. [Name] had stayed up all night, pointing the gun through the back window of the car, marking this as her third day without sleep. Needless to say, she was exhausted. Natasha grunted, and [Name] mumbled once again that she was fine, that she could walk for herself and that she didn't need the arm that her tiny red-headed counterpart had wrapped around her waist to hold her up. 

Steve knocked on the door. It was a nice house. Medium sized, two stories, small basement. One got used to analyzing their surroundings when working for a top-secret organization. Of course, [Name] didn't really work for SHIELD anymore. 

A tall, muscular black dude opened the door. "Are all of your friends buff as shit, Cap?" [Name] asked before anyone else could pipe up. 

"Damn it, [Name]," Steve muttered. "Look, I'm sorry to have to ask this, but we need a place to stay." 

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added. [Name]'s knees buckled suddenly, and Natasha grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling. "Jesus, are you alright?"

"I haven't slept in 63 hours. I think I can read minds." 

"Come on in." Steve's friend opened the door and the three stumbled in. 

~•~

In SHEILD, people call for backup a LOT. It's actually a problem; there's often so much going on at once that there it's not _enough_ backup. There aren't enough people in black clothing, visors, and bullet proof vests holding automatic weapons to burst in when you needed them the most. That's all [Name] was, really. An extra. Of course, even an extra was important when it rebelled against the system. 

She hadn't bought the story about Captain America turning evil, so she'd helped him escape. It was a simple as that. Suddenly, she was wanted. 

Natasha and Steve had been nice enough to let her take the first shower, so that she could get the maximum amount of sleep possible. She kept the water temperature uncomfortably low so that she wouldn't doze off in the shower, but even so, it was quite hard not to let her eyes close. She focused on watching the dirt on her body spiral down the drain until she'd scribble all the grit and grime from her skin and hair. 

She dried off, dressed and shuffled into the spare bedroom that Sam (the buff black guy) had lent them for the time being. The bed was soft, and she flopped onto it. [Name] had barely crawled under the covers before she drifted off. 

Natasha took her shower next, and emerged a few minutes later. She sat down heavily on the bed, and earned a quiet groan from the other occupant of it. She glanced at the pillows and felt a small smile tug at the corner of her mouth. 

The covers reach up to [Name]'s mid-waist and and she was hugging her pillow to her head like it was a life preserver. Her hair was wet and messy, and it spilled over her face in damp tangles. Natasha brushed a stray water droplet off of [Name]'s cheek. The sleeping woman snorted and twitched. 

"She doing alright?" Natasha looked up. Steve was heading toward the shower. 

"Was she really awake for 63 hours before this?"

Steve nodded. "I looked through her files after she helped me out of head quarters. She's 26, moderately paranoid. It wouldn't surprise me if she's been keeping watch at night when we were asleep."

"I like her." Steve was tempted to mention [Name]'s nickname for her, but decide to refrain. The field agent looked a lot younger when she was asleep. "She's smart."

"A smart _ass_ , maybe."

Sam's head popped into the room, and he hesitantly glanced between the three agents. "I made breakfast. If ... you guys eat that sort of thing." 

Steve shrugged. "You up for some food?" 

Natasha shook her head. "I'm gonna rest for a bit. My legs got strained in the explosion." There was something on her mind, Steve could tell, but, after a moment of reconsideration, he decided it probably wasn't his place and slipped back out of the room. 

Natasha sighed at the relief of being alone. She'd all but forgotten the sleeping form beside her, and carelessly flung her leg to side in an attempt to stretch. [Name] gasped and her eyes flew open, a good reaction for an agent. "Damn it, Nat," she mumbled. The covers slid off of her hips as she shifted. She wasn't wearing a bra, Natasha realized with somewhat of a jolt.

The expression on [Name]'s face shifted just slightly. "You alright?" she asked quietly. Natasha blinked. 

"Sure." 

"I've never actually seen you with an expression where you don't look sure of yourself, but you don't look sure of yourself currently."

"So?"

"It's worrying." Natasha was the first to break eye contact, and the other woman sighed and scooted closer to her. 

"Well, current circumstances aren't the most pleasant for me." 

"It isn't your fault for not seeing HYDRA was involved with SHIELD. You know that, yeah?" 

Natasha laughed, but there was no feeling to it. "You can read me pretty easily, then." 

"Your guard isn't up for once." Natasha still couldn't seem to meet her eyes. "Look," she sighed, "I though the same this as well. But then I was like, hey, they fooled Nick Fuckin Fury, who's hella smarter then me. Fuck 'em, right? But who ever set this all up was a genius. It's not our fault they fooled us too." 

_Perhaps not the soundest of logic,_ Natasha thought, but a guilt she'd been harboring for the time being had eased slightly. "Come here. Your hair's a mess." [Name] scooted forward. She'd set a flimsy black comb on the counter before going to bed, and she took it up. Natasha didn't move. "Come on." She grasped the assassin's shoulders and tugged her back a bit. Natasha almost flinched. [Name]'s hand were soft and her movements firm. Her fingers brushed through Natasha's hair, trailing down the back of her neck. Her nails had been clipped. Natasha's head tugged as the comb met and corrected a tangle at the bottom of the length of her hair. It was wasn't flat ironed, so the tangles in it had woven the strands tightly together. 

"This is weirdly relaxing," Natasha commented. 

"My mom used to comb my hair when ever I got freaked out over anything. After New York, she came over and we just combed each other's hair. Helped me calm down." She was silent for a moment. "I saw you, you know. In New York. Your hair was shorter. You fought like a demon." 

"[Name] ..." _Of course she lives in New York. She works for her SHIELD facility, after all._

[Name] tucked a lock of wet hair behind Natasha's ear. "There you go," she said gently. "I'm going back to sleep now." She pushed back the covers, but stopped when she felt a hand capture her wrist. "Nat?"

"Thanks. For calming me down." The assassin had turned to looked at her, but her eyes couldn't move from the bed spread. [Name] sighed and Nataha had scarcely felt the gentle fingers on her chin before [Name] was kissing her. 

It was gentle, soft. Like a butterfly's wings on her mouth. Natasha told herself that she was an assassin, she told herself that she had an amazing amount of experience, and that she was strong, but nothing seemed to break the paralysis induced by the kiss. [Name]'s wide eyes prodded her when she pulled away. "I'm going back to sleep now," she whispered. Her hands had molded themselves to cup her cheeks. "You should get some breakfast." With that, she slipped away, crawling to the other side of the bed. She slipped under the sheet. Natasha couldn't help but notice the curves of her waist, her thighs, calves, and the way her skin glowed under the light that shone through the window. _No, no, no._

She shoved herself from the bed and stalked out of the room.


End file.
